The mighty Compal-Electronics have decided to put a lot of money into this project becoming reality, and with the knowledge of co-sponsor Merida, one of the world's leading cycle manufacturers, we believe we have what we need to create a winning team.
Welcome to Taipei, welcome to the new powerhouse of Asian cycling!
2014 presentation
Compal Electronics Merida Bikes Hon Hai Precision Industry
The list of available&released riders will change based on wage budget, but this is the main outline of how I think it will look. NC wins could, for some riders, be the only way I am keeping them. We would f.ex like to build a younger Taiwanese squad, but if the veteran Feng wins the Taiwanese NC, we will have a hard time firing him.
In front of the season, he was assigned to the team as a domestique, however he showed him self as one of the teams top performers, being one of the few on our team to win more than one stage during the season.
Best veteran
Mahdi Sohrabi
One of few riders that came from the original Armavia-team. Despite his age, he still managed to pull of some great stage results against stronger opposition, mainly because of his punchy kick. In the current Iranian championship, he won with style, just as he did back in 2012.
Best talent
Tsgabu Gebremaryam Grmay
No doubt here to be honest. Grmay's fabolous performance in Tour de l'avenir, ending 10th overall, beating the likes of Meintjes, Kinoshita and Dombrowski, made us really proud. As the reigning champion, he now also secured back-to-back win's in the Ethiopian NC.
Most aggressive rider
Juan Sebastian Tamayo Martinez
With his very aggressive riding style, and his good abilty to climb hills, he was always a threat for the stage victory. He overperformed in many stage races and managed to secure a 6th place in Tour of Taiwan.
Fan favorite
Meiyin Wang
Very similar rider as Tamayo Martinez. He consistently went in breaks and quickly became a fan favorite, crowning it with the 5th place in GP Kathmandu.
Best PFG-loanee
Vahid Ghafari
Difficult to separate the two Iranians that spent the year in Kenya, but I ended up with Ghafari, due to his surprisingly high stability. He can climb, he can sprint, there is nothing he can't do. (sing along)
Rider of the year
Ivano Lo Cicero
We have complained a lot this season, but we cannot deny the fact that Lo Cicero saved us from total humiliation. His GC-win in the HC-race Eneco Tour, took a lot of pressure away from his manager, and his performance in Tour of Qatar where he finished top 5 and won the young rider's contest; was simply brilliant for the team, even though it didn't earn us points.
Worst performer
Bjartne
The first season at PCT-level was always going to be tough, however, Norwegian manager Bjartne didn't do much to help his team survive in the division, showing consistently weak leader skills. We can laugh of it now, but sending Ivano "I hate hills" Lo Cicero to the 2-week long Volta a Portugal, was probably not the best decision Edited by Bjartne on 25-02-2014 02:06
Man, that's a long rider list, you must have a massive team bus!
Like the summary of your 2013. Doubt we'll be racing up over much in C1, but might cross paths at a couple of races on the Asian calendar while keeping one of our secondary sponsors happy. Good luck in the new season!
I don't agree, Khalilikhosroshani scored way more points with his Tropicale Amissa Bongo performance. Ghafari was good as well though, rescued Phosphatiers at the end of the season. Thanks for loaning them out
Bjartne wrote:
...welcome to the new powerhouse of Asian cycling!
We'll see
Grin
Froomedog99 wrote:
I don't agree, Khalilikhosroshani scored way more points with his Tropicale Amissa Bongo performance. Ghafari was good as well though, rescued Phosphatiers at the end of the season. Thanks for loaning them out
Well be meeting alot in 2014 for sure. Good luck!
Well, I guess you could make a better decision than me regarding who did best for you in the past season I was thinking about Vanmarcke as well, but he didn't do anything very special with Venchi, so therefore I chose one of the underdogs. Glad to see both of them were of good use to you though Edited by Bjartne on 26-02-2014 00:21
The new season is soon underway and it's time to evaluate the current squad. Everybody is obviously buy-able for the right price, but I don't see anyone overpaying for our most important riders, who are basically untouchable because of their passport and national jerseys more than anything else
When it comes to the second category, there are a huge list of riders that could potentially leave. Some of them will go very cheap and is already packing their bags, some of them will require a good offer to leave, while some of them are likely to stay here also next season, but we are still listening to offers for them.
The last category are the ones that unfortunately didn't make the cut this time. We want to thank them for all the hard work they've put done and hope that some of them will find a new team during the transfer season.
We would also like to convey our gratitude to our collaboration teams for the past season, Credexbank, Kenya Barclays and Venchi who all did a great job in supporting our riders. Especially Fominykh and Vanmarcke has been remarkably better in training after returning to us in the off-season.
So many NCs !
I am definitely interested in some of your Asians, especially some certain Thai TT champion.. Let's see if we can make a deal in the transfer window.
Well, yeah, we really need to offload some riders, but we would also like to build on the chore from last season. In short, we know that our best europeans and africans will leave during the window, and we will indeed listen to and accept every serious bid made on the others as well, in order to make room for more east-asian riders, but nobody have to leave, so obviously we won't accept disrespectful bids
Tamayo Martinez was one of our more important riders last season, but is said he want's to get a fresh start for a more latino focused team, so a deal involving the Colombian in the transfer window could be possible.
Sai-Udomsin is one of the riders that are not very likely to leave due to our nationality focus and the fact that he is a versatile rider. However, we will listen to offers, and if he was to leave, Siam Cement would certainly be his first option.
Edited by Bjartne on 05-03-2014 01:55
Rumour has it that with the news you are no longer being relegated and the reclassification of a certain couple of Indonesians from untouchable to listening to offers, Sauber's interest in them, which had previously diminished upon hearing their earlier status, could well have been rekindled now they are no longer going to be divisional rivals of the Compal Merida squad.
After failing to track down the DS of the interested party whilst they are relocating their HQ the local media are now wondering if the riders current employers can shed any light on the speculation.
Assumptions from Malaysian press is correct. With us no longer going to prepare for CT-life, there is now a chance that Pranata and Suryadi might leave from our team, which, to be honest, was really unlikely just a couple of weeks ago.
Time will tell whether Compal-Merida can agree upon a deal for the duo with our friends in South-East Asia.
Our homerace, where we really has to perform. The race is likely to be decided in stage 5, so we need a hilly leader for this race. At the moment we have nobody, so that's something we have to look for in the transfer season.
Tour of Beijing
Win
Our win goal is maybe no surprise. We really want to show off our colours in mainland China, and this is the ultimate race to do so. There will be a lot of good opposition, but if everything goes as planned in the transfer season, we believe it could be achieveable.
Tour of Taihu Lake
Top 10
And finally, the sprinters get their time to shine as we take on Tour of Taihu Lake. We will look to bring in several quality sprinters in this transfer window, to avoid the lack of support which Lo Cicero had the past season.
Tour of Japan
Top 10
This race has just about everything in it and will be both funny to ride, as well as unpredictable. We will bring a variety of riders here, but we are mainly looking for a stage racier with a punchy kick to lead us in this race and hopefully secure a top 10.
Asia Tour Standings
Top 5
Last year, we didn't really focus that much on the regional rankings to be honest, and we actually finished higher up in the African rankings. This time however, will be different, as we will go all in when we take on Asian races.
Edited by Bjartne on 07-03-2014 02:11
Media reports recently emerged, indicating that the Maloja Mountain Nomads, despite their name, may have interest in German sprinter Ralf Matzka of Team Compal - Merida. The 25 year old might be interested in returning to his home country, especially since he has no compatriots in his current team. At Maloja, he could fill one of the few spots scheduled for sprinters and with his qualities on cobblestones, he would add to this area at the same time. It appears to be a good fit for both the team and the rider - if Compal can be convinced to let Matzka go.
I was thinking about Vanmarcke as well, but he didn't do anything very special with Venchi, so therefore I chose one of the underdogs. Glad to see both of them were of good use to you though 
Salfo Bikienga 
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